Been a while, I know, but I'm back again.
You may be happy now. Unless you don't want me to be back. Then you can be mad.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Death Note characters at all.
Warnings: Angst. Apples. Jam. Profanity. A. B. L. More alphabet letters. Mostly the same stuff as always.
Short Summary: "Are you suggesting he suffers Alphaphobia, so he torments people with names associated with the letter A in a outlandish attempt to overcome his fear of said letter? That seems utterly ridiculous, you know."

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I admit, not very proudly, that I'm afraid.

I can't tell you why I'm afraid or what it is that I'm afraid of, because that would only increase my fear.

I think I'll leave it at that for now.
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Alpha shut her notebook, set it next to her, and leaned back against the wall next to her bed wall with her arms wrapped around her knees. She had been confused lately. For the past two days, every time a thought expressing even the most remote signs of angst crossed her mind, she would brush it away as quickly as possible, fearing that it was red eye's doing. Maybe he had red eyes because he truly was evil. Alpha was beginning to think he was a Satan incarnate or at least demonically possessed somehow. She didn't believe in those sorts of things, but that kid made it seem probable.

And who the hell was Akino?

It had become a habit of hers to stop by B's door and listen to his conversations with "himself." Everyone said he talked to himself, but unless he referred to himself with a different name, it wasn't "himself" he was talking to. It could have surely been an imaginary friend, judging by how psycho that little shit was, but that somehow didn't seem a propper assumption to make. Her immediate thoughts (which she brushed aside as childish and ignorant) were that he was talking to the demon that was embodying him. But, yes, that seemed stupid as well.

The only solution seemed to be that she would have to speak to him again. She was good at manipulating others, so she might have been able to get more information from him if she tried hard enough. It was a long shot, but nothing else seemed even remotely possible. The thought of speaking with him again scared her to her wit's end, but she had to ask how he intended to force anyone to commit suicide, or how he had done so in the first place if it were true… or how he knew her name. That thought caused her to shudder in fear.

She had been afraid for her life ever since her conversation with the boy because of the simple fact that he knew her name. With Watari and Roger around, Alpha didn't even want to think about attempting to break into the orphanage's private files and records regarding the children there. As it was Watari mainly in charge of the files and not Roger, and Watari seemed significantly smarter than Roger, there was do doubt in her mind that she would have been discovered. B was smart, the second smartest in the entire orphanage, which meant that he probably also had the common sense not to break into the orphanage's files. That meant he had discovered her name in some other manner.

That was what scared her the most. It seemed unreal – surreal, if nothing else. Supernatural, even. The idea that he could see her name by looking at her was utterly incomprehensible to her, but at the same time, it was actually starting to seem possible. That could have either meant that she was going insane or that he was demonically possessed. That seemed like all it could have meant. But that still sounded so ridiculous…. She didn't even have to say it aloud. It sounded nonsensical just in her head.

As Alpha chewed her thumbnail, desperately trying to think of an answer, she looked down at herself. She immediately stopped chewing her thumbnail. She noticed how her hand was positioned on top of one of her bent knees, which were close enough for her to comfortably rest her chin upon. She was chewing on her fingernail. She had woken up hours ago and still hadn't brushed her hair, and she was sure her eyes were going to reflect the fact that she had been having very few hours of sleep for the past couple nights. The thought hit her quite suddenly. She groaned in agony, sliding her hand off of her knee, and her fist landed on the bed with a light thump! as she lay her forehead upon her knees instead.

She – Alpha – was thinking like L. It was wrong. It was horribly, horribly wrong. She wasn't logical. She was completely illogical to the point that she could have made a very good living off of being a lawyer just by making the jury give up with her persistence at arguing the dumbest of ideas. No, she couldn't be thinking like him! She was definitely acting like him. She was only leaving her room for about one meal a day, and only talking to L and Mello when she did decide to sit on the sofa in the main room. She hadn't been half as satirical as she normally was. All that was left was for her to develop an unnatural and obviously unhealthy addiction to cakes of all kinds.

What truly surprise Alpha was that L hadn't been questioning her half to death about why she had been acting so out of character, seeing as he seemed to question everything else in the world. There was, of course, the possibility that he was dead scared of getting his nose broken if he tried to interrogate her… which probably would have happened a few days ago. Now, though, she wasn't sure she could muster up enough motivation to even think about breaking any noses. That was even more unnatural. She couldn't help but wonder how L could stand living in such a state of mind. Perhaps he had a different state of mind. There was always the slightest chance.

"Aren't you ever going to leave your room again?"

Alpha jumped at the sudden sound of the voice as she looked up at her open doorway to see Mello and Matt peering in… well, in all fairness, Matt was more focused on his Game Boy, but he had stopped and glanced up for a moment. Alpha was glad she had allowed one of her knees to become unbent and she was more or less slouching against the wall rather than sitting straight up. She probably didn't look so (freakishly) much like L now.

"Eventually."

"You might want to hurry up. L said he wanted to talk to you about something and I think it has to do with you turning into a hermit."

She waved a dismissive hand. "I'll talk to him later."

Mello shrugged, and he and Matt continued down the hallway. She looked down at the watch around her wrist. It was almost one o' clock in the afternoon. That meant she had actually awoken a little more than a few hours ago and missed both breakfast and lunch without being completely aware of it at the time. She was loosing track of time completely, only adding to her thoughts that she was going insane. Now was as good a time as any to talk to L, since almost everyone would be outside or in their rooms.

She stood up and stretched her arms towards the ceiling. It was going to be a slow amble downstairs, considering that she hadn't even moved all day. She grabbed her notebook from her bed and walked to the door of her room. She heard garbled conversation coming from a room a few doors down from her own. She exited her room and stopped at that door, listening to B.

"Alpha is the Greek letter for A. Do you remember A?" A pause. "Yes, he was that one. Now B is the first successor. Yes, letter as well, but why do you seem to think such a thing to be so important? I suppose that is true, but– I will get you an apple in a minute, Akino. Leave me be for now. I'm thinking."

Shuddering at the thought of a demonic apple eater, Alpha continued quietly past the door and down the stairs, into the main room. She joined L on the sofa when she got there and looked at him boredly.

"What is it that I have been summoned here for? More questionings about random things that will only drive me bonkers?"

"Yes, for the most part, although it isn't my intention to annoy you."

"Oh, but of course not…"

"Judging by your sudden changes in behavior, I'm going to have to assume that you have spoken with B."

"Oh. No. Definitely not. No. Wouldn't go within ten feet of that kid, he scares the shit out of me."

"You realize I can tell when you're lying, don't you?"

Alpha shrugged nonchalantly, looking up at the ceiling. She could remember seeing her brother be interrogated about random things by their parents, and she had learned by observation that acting careless and bored was the best way to get the interrogators off your back. They would give up eventually and decide that it just wasn't worth the waste of time. It was doubtful this method would work on someone like L, but, hey – it was definitely worth a shot, right?

"The last person he went after was called A."

"Are you suggesting he suffers Alphaphobia, so he torments people with names associated with the letter A in a outlandish attempt to overcome his fear of said letter? That seems utterly ridiculous, you know."

"So then you do admit to speaking with him?"

"Nope."

"But then again, I somehow doubt you would tell anyone if you had. A refused to, after all. He finally said something about it to Watari a few weeks later, and then he killed himself the next day. A and B basically got along –"

"Which is good, considering they're basically alphabet neighbors."

"Could you listen for a moment?"

"I could consider it."

"Good. As I said, they did basically get along, but B has always acted… er… strangely."

"Like talking to people who aren't there?"

"Among other things. A began getting paranoid of B after whatever it was that happened to cause him to be paranoid happened, and acting quite a bit like you have been acting lately, as well as refused to go near B."

"And the alphabet was never the same again."

"Have you spoken with B?"

She rolled her eyes. "If I tell you, then are you going to mention anything to Roger or Watari? Because if you do, then I'm going to kick you to Mars so you can be with your nonhuman friends."

"O… kay. I wasn't going to, no."

"Well, first off, I'll have you know, the person he talks to who isn't there likes apples." L slowly raised an eyebrow. "I heard him talking to it just now. He said he'd get it an apple in a minute. So keep an eye on the stairs. If you see yourself only about a foot shorter and with red eyes coming down them, then alert me. I'm not going to tell you everything, just that yes, he did talk to me, and his imaginary person is called Akino. He claims he has some sort of power to kill others or make them kill themselves and a load of nonsense, and I'm almost inclined to believe him on account of how scary he is."

"A… apples?" L shook his head. "Just keeps getting more abnormal…. The only way he has to power to make anyone die is by driving them to do it themselves. Just be careful around him."

"Tell me something."

"Hmm?"

"Have you ever met someone with red eyes who wasn't evil?"

"I can't say I had ever met anyone with red eyes before B, personally."

"Did… he always have red eyes?"

"Yes. Since he arrived here, at the least."

"And what about Akino?" At this, she received a somewhat confused look. "I mean, has he always talked to him… her… it?"

"It would appear that way. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that myself."

Alpha sighed. "I'm not sure I want to make anything of it. I think it has something to do with his eyes. People just don't naturally develop eyes of that color." She glanced up the stairs and abruptly changed the course of the conversation. "I mean, yellow, really? Has to be color contacts."

L looked at her offhandedly for a moment, but she signaled him by glancing in the direction of the stairs. He repeated the motion, and upon spotting his doppelganger coming down the stairs, tried to continue the conversation on a believable note that actually made sense. Alpha had kind of come up with that off the top of her head, after all. She just didn't want that kid to get suspicious. She didn't want to kill herself. The idea scared her.

She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding in as the tousled-haired boy left the room, then rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "I think I know how I'm going to die. Lack of oxygen."

"Breathing could help."

"He thinks I'm going to get in the way of something," she said, shaking her head and ignoring L's comment the best that she could. "I'm not sure what, but it's definitely what he thinks. It's like he wants to be number two – in the charts this week, I can't believe that," she carried on in a different tone as she saw B leave the kitchens with an apple and a jar of strawberry jam (no bread, she noticed…), "I mean, in all honestly, their single should have been number one this week, despite the fact that their vocalist is really an ass in person."

She glanced up. He was far enough up the stairs now that they could carry on their conversation.

"That was random," she said, although she didn't particularly need to.

"Short attention spans come in handy in some situations, I suppose."

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Ohhohoho, that kid is a creep. I'm sorry. I told L as much as I could without him getting too suspicious about it and he was still suspicious and rather worried for my safety.

The last one that this kid messed with killed himself. That's a really refreshing thought to live with. The fact that this kid might cause me to up and kill myself. Well, skidleydoo!
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Grumbling under her breath, Alpha lay down on her bed. It was definitely going to be a long night of worrying and nightmares. She hated having those types of nights, but she needed sleep. As it turned out, hiding from psycho nine-year-olds all day was more tiresome than she had first assumed it would be. No matter. While it may have only been about eight o' clock at night, she could still sleep. She had been smart enough to lock her door this time, even. She didn't normally mind Mello visiting her in the middle of the night looking for either chocolate or help interpreting that reoccurring dream of his, but tonight, she did mind. No one was getting into her room. Not one single person. She just wanted some damn sleep, that was all. It shouldn't have been too much to ask for.

She pulled the covers on her bed up over her, attempting to find some sort of comfortable position. She finally found one and relaxed, closing her eyes slowly. She rolled them, even with her eyelids down, as a vision of wide, staring red eyes filled her mind. Sleeping was going to be made nearly impossible with that vision imprinted into her mind for the rest of time.

Alpha left her eyes open for a few minutes, wondering what to do. Resignedly, she closed her eyes again in another attempt to sleep. She was tired, but this just kept happening every night. She was just going to have to give in and keep her eyes shut to hope for sleep, regardless of what kinds of dreams it brought. They were only nightmares. That was all. Never reality. It wouldn't affect her when she woke up. To let something so stupid make her afraid would be simply inane, as well as insane.

Of course, her mind disagreed with her when she woke up at twelve o' clock that night after a nightmare she didn't remember. She had fallen on the floor with a yelp of fear when she awoke. She lay there for a few moments, feeling absolutely foolish. However, she couldn't help it. She walked over to her computer desk and turned her lamp on before getting back in bed and laying back down on top of the covers with her arms crossed. She hadn't slept with a night light since she was three and afraid that the monster in her closet was going to get her.

Unfortunately, she remembered describing the monster to her parents as having red eyes. Red. Dammit. Why did she have to remember something like that now? That was stupid! She wasn't a little kid anymore…. Nightmares weren't supposed to actually keep scaring her when she woke up, but it always seemed that the ones that she never remembered were the worst. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for this or not, as it only made her all the more curious as to what in the world could be worse than the ones she did remember.

She sat straight up at the sound of a knock on her door. She was almost afraid to answer.

Foolish child, she heard a voice in her mind chide her. She decided to ignore it.

"Yeh?" she said in response to the knock.

"Open!" was all that came from the other side, in a hushed voice.

She sighed in – what, relief? She was hardly relieved that Mello was at her door sounding scared out of his wits. She had hoped to avoid exactly this sort of thing. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen tonight. So, actually quite glad for the company although she would never admit it for fear of tarnishing her own reputation, Alpha stood up and walked to the door. She unlocked it and opened it. The midget darted around her quickly. She shut the door and locked it behind her, and turned to see him huddled against the wall on her bed. She walked back there and also sat down.

"Nightmare."

He nodded fervently. This wasn't what he was usually like after his most frequent nightmare, and usually, other nightmares were things he found utterly hilarious the next day, for whatever reason. Probably for the same reason that she had laughed all the way through every zombie movie she had ever watched, but whatever. That didn't matter. Mello was scared out of his wits for some reason, and she had to figure out why. Oh joy.

"What about?"

"L's successor. B. That kid. I woke up and he was standing over my bed with a knife. And a jar of jam that looked more like blood. Then it was one of those dreams where I woke up again and I was actually awake but it scare the sh–"

"Language"

"– it out of me!" he finished anyway. "I'm not going back in my room, it's haunted!"

"Mello, think reasonably, here," she said. "How could your room be haunted by someone who is alive?"

"Number one, out of body experience. Study it. It's real. Number two, who ever said that he wasn't dead? I think he's a vampire, and strawberry jam reminds him of blood. And it isn't funny! The earliest accounts of vampirism in the New England colonies in the States include details of the victims being asleep at the time and dreaming it, while the vampire actually is there and sucking out their soul! They opened a coffin weeks after this woman had died and she hadn't even started decomposing. They had to burn her heart to make it stop! I think someone should do that to B."

"You're rambling, Mello."

"Am not."

"Now you're attempting to start an argument. You should consider a career as a lawyer. What made you want to study vampires in the first place?"

"B did. I looked at him one day and thought 'vampire.' So I looked things up on the computer and concluded he is one, but he's the kind that consumes both blood and souls, except he has substituted blood for strawberry jam. Stop laughing…"

"Is there anything in particular that could have triggered this dream?"

"B! Do I need to recite the alphabet?"

"No. I mean, did he say anything at all to you?"

"No," Mello said, "but you and L were discussing him earlier, that could have been it. Is he really after you?"

Oh shit. How'd he hear us? He must not have been in his room… probably went outside and came back in and heard us talking about it and hid out until we both left…. Crap.

"Mello, you know how paranoid I am. It's highly doubtful he is, he just disturbs me slightly."

"But with what happened to A–"

"A was under too much pressure and couldn't take it anymore, and B was only adding onto it. That's all there was to that."

"He's still a damn vampire!"

"If you keep swearing, I'm going to revoke your chocolate privileges."

His eyes widened in horror. "Sorry."

"Now. You have to admit, the kid is smart. A little on the weird side, but smart. He's not going to kill anyone, especially not right under Watari's nose."

"Watari's leaving with L."

"I know, but that doesn't mean anything. I'm going to find out if I can take over Roger's position here while Roger fills in for Watari. If he's under my watch, I'll make sure he doesn't do anything. Besides, no one ever said he was psycho."

Mello shrugged, but seemed mostly in agreement. "He is smart and all. He's got to be if he's in line as L's successor before you are. And he might not be psychotic, but he's still creepy…."

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Great. Mello overheard me talking to L and now he's scared of that psycho-kid.

Could this week possibly get any worse?

Oh, right, it could. Watari and L are leaving at the end of it.

Shit!
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Alpha threw her journal across her room in annoyance, as though it were the cause of all of the problems she was having. She wished she knew why she was afraid. There was no point. She was sixteen and he was nine. She could beat the crap out of him if she wanted to. There was no use denying it at all.

But, still, she was afraid. And so was Mello. And it was her fault. It was a wonderful, wonderful week.

Whellll after reading Death Note: Another Note LABB Murder Cases, I officially declare L, Matsuda, Mello and B to be tied as my most favoritist characters in any series ever of all time. All tying for the number 1 spot. I'm aware Matsuda doesn't fit in with the theme, but I don't care because he's just that awesome.

Anyways. I'm up to 20 reviews and I am grateful as always.

There's going to be one more chapter in the age 16 years, then the next one will be a year later at 17, obviously.